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Casey Newton / The Interface : A recap of antitrust hearing, which was messy but overdue and showed us the beginning of Congress holding powerful tech CEOs to account based on actual evidence   —  Well, we had an antitrust hearing.  —  A long one, too.  The House Judiciary Committee's investigation into the market power of Amazon … from Techmeme https://ift.tt/30dU5Ol

Star Wars, Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil and more. from CNET News https://ift.tt/3fgftGF

Rep. Jim Jordan's outburst, "Amazon heroin" and calls to break up Big Tech. from CNET News https://ift.tt/2P86sF7

Cho Mu-Hyun / ZDNet : Samsung reports Q2 earnings with sales of ~$44.5B, down 5.6% YoY, but an operating profit of ~$6.8B, up 23.5% YoY, as demand for memory chips increased   —  Samsung posted 8.15 trillion won in second quarter operating profit, with its semiconductor business contributing 5.43 trillion won of that. from Techmeme https://ift.tt/2X71SLW

Apple CEO Tim Cook defended the company’s App Store commission structure in his sworn testimony before the House Antitrust Subcommittee on Wednesday. He claimed the majority of the apps pay no commission at all, with others paying either 15 or 30 percent, based on the specifics of their particular situation. He said developers were all treated equally and that Apple wouldn’t raise commissions, because it had to compete for developer interest in its platform as well. But the documents shared by the House subcommittee as part of their investigation indicate that exceptions to Apple’s rules have been made — notably, with Amazon’s Prime Video app. In addition, Apple may have never raised commissions, but discussions weren’t off the table. It had once even considered raising commissions to 40% in particular situations. The lawmakers had come to the hearing armed with internal Apple emails and interviews from App Store developers who argued that Apple doesn’t uniformly enforce its rules a...

While much of today’s Congressional grilling into the anticompetitive practices of the big tech giants focused on their core businesses, Amazon’s hardware also came in for close inspection during the hours-long interrogation. It was a small but significant exchange, because it touched on the breadth of the company’s services and how dominance in one area can mean potentially anti-competitive behavior in another part of the tech giant’s business. Lawmakers argue that big tech stands to benefit from the pandemic and must be regulated For Maryland’s Representative Jamie Raskin, both Amazon’s best-selling Echo and the Fire TV devices became targets thanks to recent reporting on the company’s business practices and negotiations regarding both devices. The Echo is the company’s foray into the smart home market that’s widely seen as the next major battleground in consumer technology. It’s one of the most widely adopted pieces of Amazon’s technology and has captured about 60% of t...

Microsoft last week launched a preview of a new enterprise-only option that blocks Windows' telemetry from reaching Redmond's servers. The option wasn't given an official label in the July 23 announcement , but at the sign-up site was defined as "The Data Processor Service for Windows Enterprise" – a mouthful even for Microsoft, known for interminable titling. [ Related: Microsoft revamps Windows Insider release vernacular ] Marisa Rogers, the privacy officer responsible for Windows and Microsoft's browsers, pointed out that enterprises and other organizations – universities, for the most part – now have two choices when it comes to what their PCs report to Redmond. "Enterprise customers had two options in managing their Windows 10 diagnostic data: 1) allow Microsoft to be the controller of that data ... or 2) turn off diagnostic data flows altogether." To read this article in full, please click here from Computerworld https://ift.tt/30ao...